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Busting The Top Five Myths About Open Access Publishing

Danny Kingsley | The Conversation | July 11, 2013

Rather than lock up knowledge in costly journals, increasingly universities and governments are recognising that publicly funded research should be open to all. Read More »

Can Startups Save the NHS?

Staff Writer | Courier | November 25, 2016

A near-sacred institution, the NHS has spent little time out of the public psyche since its inception in 1948. Today, far from being a celebrated feat of public welfare, each day brings a barrage of stories of closing hospital A&Es, cuts in funding, huge debts and an ageing population. Faced by a heavy funding deficit, demands vastly different to when the service was conceived, and shifts in politics and ideology, many believe the NHS is itself strapped to a life support machine...

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Canada's Headed For A HealthCare.gov Disaster Of Its Own

Tom Cochran | Huff Post | December 22, 2016

I am deeply disappointed at yet another massive government IT failure, and sadly, not surprised in the slightest. The Canadian government's initiative to consolidate more than 1,500 government websites into a single super site, Canada.ca, is failing and starting to look like Canada's version of the disastrous Healthcare.gov. The original deadline for completing the project passes this month, with costs ballooning from $1.54 million to a reported $9.4 million, and growing...

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Canceling Elsevier Subscriptions Would Pay for Transition to Open Access

A central question for many people involved in Open Access is whether it can, or will save money. Most analyses suggest that a fully OA environment is cheaper (or at worst similar in cost) for institutions...But for research intensive institutions in particular taking the lead by investing in a transition to Open Access while also covering the costs of existing subscriptions could be expensive. At the same time real concerns are emerging about some traditional publishers successfully driving costs higher. How can countries and institutions invest in creating an Open Access environment that serves their needs and brings costs down without spending too much on the transition?

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canSAR and other Information Portals, Data, and Tools used in the fight against Cancer

canSAR is a new cancer database launched earlier this week by the U.K. Institute of Cancer Research. It contains 1.7 billion experimental results and utilizes artificial (AI) intelligence technology to discover the cancer treatments of the future. It is an integrated knowledge-base that brings together multidisciplinary data across biology, chemistry, pharmacology, structural biology, cellular networks and clinical annotations. The goal is to further improve cancer research and drug discovery by providing free access to the knowledgebase and associated resources by researchers from across different disciplines. There are a growing number of available cancer databases and information portals. Read More »

CGI, Marand and Apperta in Partnership to Deliver OPENeP Across the NHS

Press Release | Apperta, CGI, Marand | August 22, 2016

Apperta, in partnership with CGI and Marand are pleased to announce OPENeP - an Open-Source medication management product developed by Marand, in collaboration with the NHS and supported by CGI’s expertise in the integration and implementation of health IT systems. OPENeP is a comprehensive, user-friendly and innovative medication management product built on the Think!EHR Platform, based on open standards (openEHR) and developed with a vision to completely replace time-consuming and error prone manual paper based prescribing and medication administration processes...

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Charity Alliance Launches Fund To Make Charitably Funded Research Open Access

Press Release | Charity Open Access Fund | September 3, 2014

An alliance of leading UK medical research charities is today launching a new fund to help make charitably funded research freely available as soon as it is published.  Arthritis Research UK, Breast Cancer Campaign, the British Heart Foundation (BHF), Cancer Research UK, Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research, and the Wellcome Trust have joined together to create the Charity Open Access Fund (COAF)...

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CIS Mobile Announces Major Update to the altOS Platform

Press Release | CIS Mobile | September 9, 2020

CIS Mobile, a leader in mobile security, today announced the release of altOS 10. This new major release adds significant security, management, and control features for sensitive government user cases and updates the altOS operating system to Android 10. In addition to the new privacy features incorporated into Android 10, this major update to the altOS platform includes...Secure Mode upgrades. Secure Mode enables altOS devices to dynamically control access to peripherals that might be used to exfiltrate data from sensitive government sites, or that could reveal sensitive location data to a foreign adversary.

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City of Leeds (UK) Builds Open Source Integrated Digital Care Record for Local Communities

Press Release | UK Department for Communities and Local Government | September 23, 2015

Leeds City Council is at the helm of a ‘demonstrator’ project that is building an open source digital care record platform that will be made available to local health authorities, local authorities, and health and social care providers nationwide. The team behind the initiative, named Ripple, is made up of Leeds City Council – which is hosting the platform – the Local Government Association, NHS England and the Health and Social Care Information Centre. Its director is Tony Shannon, formerly clinical consultant for the NHS Connecting for Health programme and Chief Clinical Information Officer at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust. Read More »

Coronavirus Lessons From the Asteroid That Didn't Hit Earth

Benny Peiser and Andrew Monfort | Wall Street Journal | April 2, 2020

London: The coronavirus pandemic has dramatically demonstrated the limits of scientific modeling to predict the future. The most consequential coronavirus model, produced by a team at Imperial College London, tipped the British government, which had until then pursued a cautious strategy, into precipitate action, culminating in the lockdown under which we are all currently laboring. With the Imperial team talking in terms of 250,000 to 510,000 deaths in the U.K. and social media aflame with demands for something to be done, Prime Minister Boris Johnson had no other option. But last week, a team from Oxford University put forward an alternative model of how the pandemic might play out, suggesting a much less frightening future and a speedy end to the current nightmare.

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Covert US-EU Trade Deal Could Make NHS Privatization Irreversible – Trade Unions

Staff Writer | RT News | September 10, 2014

A group of high-profile trade unions have backed a growing campaign opposed to a new transatlantic trade deal critics claim will make the privatization of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) irreversible.  Three of the UK’s largest unions have tendered motions to the Trade Union Congress (TUC) in Liverpool, outlining their opposition to the cross-border agreement currently being negotiated by EU bureaucrats and US delegates...

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COVID-19 Will Be The Ultimate Stress Test For Electronic Health Record Systems

Eric D. Perakslis and Erich Huang | STAT | March 12, 2020

As the novel coronavirus that causes Covid-19 continues its march around the world and through the United States, it is spawning another kind of infection: Covid-19 cyber threats aimed at individuals and health systems. We aren't crying wolf here. Disaster planning experts know all too well that preexisting weaknesses become worse during crises. The WannaCry cyber attack that devastated the United Kingdom's National Health Service is a good example. Outdated infrastructure containing components with long-understood vulnerabilities are a hacker's paradise...The undeniable fact that electronic health record systems are designed to track and bill procedures rather than provide optimal patient care is likely to be on full display as the health system becomes increasingly saturated with Covid-19 patients.

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Cuba’s Ebola Diplomacy

Jon Lee Anderson | The New Yorker | November 4, 2014

Even in this age of international coalitions, the one arrayed against the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is impressive. In September, more than a hundred and thirty nations voted in favor of a United Nations Security Council resolution declaring the virus, which is rampant in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone, a threat to international security and creating the U.N. Mission for Ebola Emergency Response, or UNMEER, devoted to fighting the virus...

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Cutting the Cord: Vodafone UK's Revolutionary Approach to Mobility, Flexibility & Productivity

Guy Laurence | OpenSource.com | February 22, 2012

Vodafone believes that working smarter will help businesses survive and thrive in a challenging economic climate. The mobile group's UK operating company is undergoing a seismic cultural shift, using its own technology to introduce a new way of working, which it believes will provide a blueprint for all businesses and organisations in the 21st century. Read More »

Doctors Name Treatments That Bring Little or No Benefit

Staff Writer | BBC | October 24, 2016

Women over 45 do not need a blood test to diagnose the menopause and X-rays are no real help to those with lower back pain, doctors have said. The advice, drawn up by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, features on a list of 40 treatments that bring little or no benefit to patients. The list is part of a campaign to reduce the number of unnecessary medical treatments. Patients are also encouraged to ask more questions about procedures. Medical experts from 11 different specialties were asked to identify five treatments or procedures commonly used in their field that were not always necessary or valuable...

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